What It Takes to Live Fruitfully in Community

Long after chaste celibacy has become a habit and apostolic poverty a settled way of doing business, living in community can still seem like a battle. Friars in their eighties will tell you that nothing challenges a religious’ vows like living with a bunch of other religious.

You’d think that after sixty-something years living in a religious community a friar would have figured out how to do it well. Most do, some don’t. The ones who’ve figured it out have settled into the rhythms of living communally; they’ve worked hard on tempering their idiosyncratic needs and finding ways to use their gifts for the common good. Those who struggle to make common life work for them usually fight against the demands of the community; they strive to make themselves stand out as individuals, demanding personal privileges and special treatment.

So, what are some of the more common challenges that religious face in living communally? And what does it take to live the life fruitfully?

When I entered religious life in 1999 as a Dominican novice, my parents were curious about how it all worked. I tried to explain to them that we all lived together in the same building, ate together at the same time and at the same table, prayed together, met regularly to discuss how things were going, worked together on common ministry projects, shared financial resources, and just generally spent more time in one another’s presence than we do alone. My mom said, “Wow. That’s a lot of togetherness!” Indeed. And then they asked how I – a committed introvert and lover of solitude – was going to handle all this togetherness. All I could say was, “With the help of God’s mercy and the friars’.”

That’s what it takes to live fruitfully in community: both divine and human mercy. There’s no point in pouring sugar over the challenges that community life pose to the individual friar. Within two days of entering the novitiate, I knew I was in trouble. . .

My novitiate had fourteen friars: three Africans, four Anglo-Americans, one African-American, a Cuban, a Nicaraguan, two Colombians, one Mexican, and one Puerto Rican. Our novice master was from Nicaragua, and his assistant was from Minnesota. We had a soon-to-be physician, a martial artist, a carpenter, an accomplish musician, a biblical scholar, three men with doctorates, and a lawyer. Our average age was 35. Most of us were on our second or third career. By the end of the novitiate year there were eight of us left. In 2018, there are five.

With this level of diversity and all the baggage that any previously independent 35-year-old man can carry, we set out to become a religious community. The challenges for me mounted almost immediately.

Common Challenge No. 1: Expectations are Usually Disappointed

I’ll be honest: I entered the novitiate expecting to spend the year floating around on clouds of incense while chanting the rosary in Latin. My expectations for religious life were shaped by too many books on medieval religious life, and bad movies. I was expecting twelfth-century Cluny and got something more like a United Nations dorm with regular prayer! I almost left in October, just three months in. To make it all the way to simple vows, I had to adjust my expectations radically. I don’t mean I had to compromise my ideals about religious life. I mean, I had to rid myself of the romanticism that followed me into the Order. Men enter religious life. Real human beings with all the fallenness men everywhere share. We all had good and bad habits; various histories with communal living (dorms, barracks, merchant ships); different experiences in ministry and the liturgical life of the Church; different sorts of careers (academic, small business, the courts); and some wildly different views on what religious life was going to be in the third millennium. In all this variety, there was no room for living the life like a twelfth-century Cluny monk! So, I adjusted my expectations. Docility to the community and loads of humility make community life possible.

Common Challenge No. 2: From Initial Formation to Full-time Ministry

Moving from the novitiate/studium (seminary) is something of a shock. After six or seven years living in a large, well-organized community where friars spend most of their day together, moving into a house or priory after solemn profession/ordination is jarring. First, the friars range in age from early 30’s to late 80’s. This means not only wildly different life-experiences but – more importantly – wildly different kinds of formation. Some of the friars went through the immediate post-WWII formation programs – huge classes, strict rules, courses taught in Latin. Some of the friars went through formation in the immediate post-Vatican Two era – unsettled rules, swiftly changing curricula, and lots of guys leaving formation. These differences in formation shine through in the way friars live in community. Secondly, once out in the ministry field, it quickly becomes apparent that ministry comes first for most friars. The days of a chapel crammed full of novices/student brothers and senior friars are gone.

Southern Dominican Province Friars

Community is still the touchstone of religious life, but the constant presence of brother-friars has taken a back seat to full-time ministry. Thirdly, as a solemnly professed brother or priest, you are now part of the decision-making process for the house or priory. It’s no longer all about waiting for the senior brothers to decide and decree. This changes how you think about community, how you see individual brother-friars, and how you interact with them. It also means that you are eligible for a leadership role! There’s more room for individual action outside the novitiate/studium but that freedom comes with more responsibility. Last but not least, the move from initiation formation to full-time ministry means finding a way to live in community that makes the best use of your gifts. Sometimes there’s a house job that needs doing, and you’re available to do it. Other times there’s a house job that fits your gifts perfectly but another friar is doing that just fine already. Again, docility and humility are required to live peaceably. And the mercy of the brothers is a necessity.

Common Challenge No. 3: Communication, and the lack thereof

Different eras in the life of the Church have produced a number of different styles of formation. These different styles produce different sorts of friars. One of the most obvious differences among the various generations of friars living together is differences in communication styles. You may find older friars who never complain, never balk at taking on a task. Middle-aged friars who communicate in what sounds like something you might hear in a psychotherapy session. And younger friars who’ve adopted an older generation’s religious language, speaking in terms thought long-forgotten. Obviously, these differences can cause a house/priory to sound like the Tower of Babel! This is unfortunate because being able to speak one another in a common religious language is vital to a stable community life. During my novitiate one of the novices started putting signs around the priory asking the brothers to do or not to do certain things – “Please wash your dishes!” “Don’t overload the washers!” Our novice master allowed this to go on for a while. After a month or so, we had little signs all over the house, signs everyone dutifully ignored. During a chapter meeting, the novice master presented us with a stack of those signs. He tore them up and announced, “Brothers, this is not how we communicate. We will not live in a tyranny of little signs!” Every time I see a sign now in one of our priories, I smile and silently denounce the Tyranny of Little Signs.

For some, Little Signs are a means of effective communication. For others, they represent a faceless dictatorship. That’s a big difference in how we think we ought to speak to one another. Another big difference in pops up during community meetings. Some of the brothers will be direct even blunt. Others will be passive-aggressive and circumspect. And still others will speak using modern political or pop-cultural language. When we fail to listen in charity and choose to hear what isn’t said, feelings get hurt, arguments arise, issues get confused. Getting through these differences requires – you guessed it! – docility, humility, and a lot of mercy. Over time, a community will develop a common way of speaking that makes living together fruitful.

In many ways, living community life as a religious isn’t all that different from living with roommates or family. Personalities clash. Habits – good and bad – rub others the wrong way. Needs differ. Managing expectations, knowing what’s coming, and effective communication can mitigate the severity of what challenges a fruitful community life. However, nothing beats the grace of mercy and the good habits of being open to learning and knowing that the brothers depend on you as much as you depend on them.

Footer

Contact Us

About Us

We are the Dominican Friars of Memphis, part of the worldwide Order of Preachers founded in 1216. We have continuously served Memphis since 1845. We are part of the Province of Saint Martin de Porres in the Order of Friars Preachers serving the Southern United States.

This vocations website is part of our community’s Holy Preaching – inspiring others via spoken and written word to answer God’s call to be a priest, brother or friar.